Birmingham Museum's Conservation Studio selects
Meiji microscopes to study the Staffordshire Hoard

Meiji Techno UK, one of the UK's leading suppliers of light microscopes and accessories, together with one of their leading dealers, Mazurek Optical Services, completed the installation of a suite of new microscopes featuring the RX stereo microscope with an Infinity camera and software analysis system. These will be used in the study of the Staffordshire Hoard, the most significant archaeological find ever uncovered in the West Midlands region.Deborah Cane, the Collections Care Officer at Birmingham Museum, has been seconded for two years to leading a team of conservators to record the process of conservation cleaning and preparing for exhibition the collection of pieces collectively known as the Staffordshire Hoard. This is the first and most important step: to conserve the Hoard so that it is materially stable thereby allowing the effective investigation of the material by scientists, archaeologists and historians.

Suite of new microscopes featuring the RX stereo microscope with an Infinity camera and software analysis has been installed at Birmingham Museum Conservation Studio.

The Hoard was found in July 2009 by Terry Herbert, a metal detector enthusiast decided to try his luck in farmland close to his home near Lichfield, Staffordshire. Following initial assessment, the Hoard was found to contain 97 sword pommels (25% of the sword pommels are of a cloisonne design with 60% constructed from fine filigree), 354 sword and dagger hilt fittings, 9 pyramids, 4 pommel rings, 2 buttons and a large amount of fragments. The Hoard totals 5.094 kilos of gold, 1.442 kilos of silver including approximately 3,500 cloisonne garnets (51 loose) and a large number of fragments some of which are consistent with those found on helmets of this period. In total, the Hoard contains 3,490 pieces/fragments and has no comparator in terms of content and quantity in the UK or mainland Europe.

With three permanent staff and up to another four on professional placements, the studio, requires ergonomically designed microscopes that deliver high optical performance at a reasonable price. Having used other suppliers prior to her move to Birmingham, Deborah Cane says that "the Meiji microscopes are simply nice to work with and give my team exactly what they need in terms of comfort and resultant images. Using the Infinity camera gives us the time-saving advantage of an inclusive metrology package that gives measurements directly on the images as they are recorded. We get terrific support from Steve Mazurek and his company in terms of training and advice on imaging which really is important when running a time sensitive project such as conserving the Hoard."

The Hoard is now on public display in Gallery 16 at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in Chamberlain Square in the heart of the city.

For further information, view website: www.meijitechno.co.uk  Refer to page 347

User benefits of broad accessory range offering
unlimited possibilities delivered by JPK Instruments

JPK Instruments, a world-leading manufacturer of nanoanalytic instrumentation in life sciences and soft matter report on the benefits of a broad accessory range to enable SPM researchers reach their goals. The 2010 accessories handbook is now available.

JPK's philosophy in the development of their instrumentation range has been to provide unlimited possibilities to their users. Working in scanning probe microscopy (SPM), a researcher may start with a basic system such as an atomic force microscope. Perhaps they would then add from a menu of operation modes to enable the study of specific sample properties, e.g. mechanical, electrical or electrochemical. JPK has a central platform known as the NanoWizard® AFM. Their BioAFM head is now complemented by optional heads such as the CellHesion® 200 and ForceRobot® 300.

The important question is how is this beneficial to users? More and more laboratories are sharing instrumentation not just between individual research groups but also between scientific disciplines. For example, environmental control of the sample is now accepted as vital to obtain reproducible images and to study how reactions may vary depending on variables such as humidity, liquid/gas composition or temperature.

This is illustrated by the research work of Dr Kay-Eberhard Gottschalk. Dr Gottschalk received his PhD at the Technical University in Munich in the group of Professor Horst Kessler. After a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute focusing on protein-protein interactions with Gideon Schreiber, he became a junior group leader at the Department of Applied Physics, headed by Hermann Gaub at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. He has recently become leader of the new nanostructure research group at the University of Greifswald within the Centre of Humoral Immune Reactions in Cardiovascular Disease (ZIK HIKE), sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Science under their innovation initiative "Unternehmen Region". Dr Gottschalk's research work started with theoretical structural biology, but he later expanded his research by force measurements, a subject which he has published a number of papers reporting on single molecule force spectroscopy on living cells and interactions between proteins or cells and surfaces.

Speaking about JPK's range of SPM accessories approach, Dr Gottschalk said "the research of my lab is at the interface of medicine and physics. Our collaboration partners are physicians, which report on immune reactions after treatment with certain medications. They want to know the molecular reasons. To answer their questions, I need instruments that offer me the powerful opportunity to combine very sensitive measurements of protein interactions on cells with cutting edge microscopic approaches. The unique design of the JPK instruments allows me to integrate the insight gained by life-cell microscopy with the measurement of adhesive forces down to the single molecule level, even when working with samples from patients. This will push our understanding of the immune response to bio-therapeutics to a new level."

For further information, e-mail: dammermann@jpk.com or view website: www.jpk.com  Refer to page 299   

Dolomite's Advanced Droplet Generation System
provides precise control over flow rate and droplet size

Dolomite's Advanced Droplet Generation System, enables users to produce more than 10,000 highly monodispersed droplets per second, ranging from Ø 20 to 250µm. Developed for more experienced researchers, this system is the latest addition to Dolomite's Micro Droplet System range and provides a flexible, high-performance solution for droplet formation. Providing a complete solution which contains all required pumps, connectors and chips, this system is ideal for a wide range of development work in droplet microfluidics, including applications such as high throughput chemistry and biology.

The Droplet Advanced System provides a pulseless and stable liquid flow, with a wide pressure range of 0 - 10bar. The pressure driven pumps and flow resistors enable precise control over flow rates and droplet size, providing a highly advanced and flexible solution for droplet formation. In addition, quick changes to flow conditions enable fast optimization of droplet parameters.

A broad range of accessories, including high-speed optical systems, larger reservoirs, reagent kits and flow sensors provide an additional level of user flexibility.
For bespoke applications, Dolomite designs and manufactures custom chips.

For further information on Dolomite's custom capabilities, the complete range of Micro Droplet Systems as well as Dolomite's portfolio of microfluidic products, including chips, connectors/interconnects, pumps, valves and flow sensors, view website: www.dolomite-microfluidics.com  Refer to page 300

Starna extends range of CRMs to
cover Far UV to NIR spectral region

Starna Scientific's Calibration and Reference Material manufacturing laboratory has extended the Starna range of Certified Reference Materials (CRMs), providing the most comprehensive range of UV/Visible/NIR materials currently available under the scope of  ISO Guide 34 + ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation for Reference Material producers.

The CRMs are essential for ISO/IEC accredited laboratories, pharmaceutical QA/QC or metrology departments enabling the provision of Operational Qualification (OQ) and Performance Qualification (PQ) of UV/Visible/NIR instrumentation using 'Industry Standard' protocols.

Starna is the only Reference Material producer accredited to both ISO Guide 34 and ISO/IEC 17025 in the UV/Visible/NIR spectral range. The CRMs the company now provide extend the scope of available materials for spectral range, band width and photometric linearity.

"We now produce CRMs for wavelength and Transmittance scales, certified in accordance with ISO Guide 34 and ISO/IEC 17025, for the complete Far UV to NIR spectral region (190 - 2850 nm)," explained Keith Hulme, Starna's Managing Director.

The Starna® Lifetime Guarantee is offered on all Starna® manufactured Certified Reference Materials (CRMs). The guarantee provides for a free of charge replacement should the assigned values move outside the expanded uncertainty budget within the recertification period of two years, subject to conditions of use/care and recertification by Starna at least every two years.

Starna® Lifetime Guarantee is offered on all Starna® manufactured Certified Reference Materials (CRMs). The guarantee provides for a free of charge replacement should the assigned values move outside the expanded uncertainty budget within the recertification period of two years, subject to conditions of use/care and recertification by Starna at least every two years.

For further infrormation, e-mail: sales@starna.com or view website: www.starna.com